The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1887-12-31
AMERICA IN WESTMINSTER.
Three Graves Which Are Memorial of the
Revolutionary War.

Archdeaeon Farrar. in January Harper.
ca has SAID said that ..in iU signing away 9 his
own empire George III did not sign away
the empire of English liberty. of English
law, of English literature, of English blood. of
English religion, of the English tongue"
Americans enjoy, no less than we, the benefit
of the Great Charter, the Petition of Right. the
Habeas Corpus Act. They need not go back for
their history to Indian annals Icelandic sagas.
Theirs are the palaces of the Plantagenets, the
cathedrals which enshrine old religion the
illustrious hall in which the long line Of our
great judges reared by their decisions the fabric
of our law. the gray colleges in which our intel
lect and science have found their earliest home,
the graves where our heroes, and sages and poets
sleep. Indeed have understated their share
in the Abbey. 1t reaches down not only to the
days of the Pilgrim Fathers, but to the war of
independence. Chatham, and Burke and Barre.
as well Patrick Henry, advocated the Amer
lean cause, which engaged the sympathy of the
great mass of Englishmen. if not that of Green
vile and North.
OF the war of independence there are but
three memorials all full of pathos.
In the North cloister. in a nameess grave.
lies General Sir John BuFgoyne, who died on
Aug. 4, 1793 at the age Of seventy, sixteen
years after he had surrendered and resigned
his sword to General Gates at Saratoga, in 1777.
1t is strange that there should be
ment, not even an inscription to mark the spot
where lie the remains of man whose defeat
sent such a thrill through the heart of England
and America has never been equalled in
modern times.
Passing by for one moment the tomb of Andre
to which we shall return, notice the wall of
the choir, South aisle, the little unpretending
tablet to William Wragg He was a lawyer of
South Carolina who, when the American colo
MES revolted from Great Britain. ''infexibly
eminent of his sovereign and therefore
compelled to leave his distressed family and
ample fortune, and to fly from the States in the
very year of BurgoyneS surrender. His ship
was lost on the coast of Holland The bas
lief represents the shipwreck in which he per-
ished and the escape of his son, who, with the
1oid of Ella elm
package, and was cast alive upon the shore.
The most interesting memorial of the is
undoubtedly the famous tomb of Major John
Andre. The circumstances which brought about
the death of that brave, bright, and unfortu-
nate young officer narrated with such ample
detail in all American histories, and the whole
story of the treason of enedict Arnold and the
arrest of Andre is so familiar that / need not
dwell upon them. His one desire was that he
should not be regarded as spy, and that he
should be shot as a soldier, not hung as felon.
But Professionalism Cunningham had hung
Captain Nathan Hale, and hence Andre pleaded
in vain in his letter to Washington that he had
agreed to meet "a person" (Arnold or his agent)
who was to give him intelligence upon ground
not within the posts of either army" Against
my stipulation" he said. my intention and
without my knowledge, was conducted within
one of your posts Surely" he said to Major
Tallmadge you do not consider Hales case
and mine a1ke?r Eyes" replied the American
major. precisely similar, and similar win be
your fate" How much he won the sympathy
and affection of his captors by his frankness
ana cOurage; now washington thought MN
more unfortunate than guilty" and with his
own hands closed the shutters of his room from
which the gibbet at Tappan was visible; how
until the last fatal moment he was kept in mer-
ciful ignorance that he not to die a soldiers
DEATH how bravey he met his miserable fate;
how he buried under the gallows, and
peach-tree planted on the spot; how, forty years
later. at the request of the Duke of York his
remains were disnterred and sent to England;
how it was found that the peach tree had twined
its roots among his hair; how the funeral SER
vice read over his remains Nov.
IS 1921, in the Abbey by Dean Ireland, and
this monument erected to his memory by George
III-are facts known to all. The Americans
have treated his memory with generosity. They
wept at his death; they sent home his remains
with every circumstance of honor.
IT has just leaked out that the dinner which